Season finale review: 'Cougar Town' - 'Something Good Coming': The Hawaii way

A review of the one-hour "Cougar Town" finale coming up just as soon as I'm not Coolio...

When the "Scrubs" gang went to the Bahamas in the final full season of the regular show, it was done in part so that Bill Lawrence could win a debate with his mentor Gary David Goldberg about whether it was possible to make a funny sitcom vacation episode filmed on location. Lawrence easily won the argument with that "Scrubs" two-parter, and with "Something Good Coming" - which has an extended cameo from "Scrubs" alum Sam Lloyd, playing his "Scrubs" character of singin' lawyer Ted Buckland - he's proved that "My Soul On Fire" was no fluke. He and his people can actually take their show on the road and have it still be their show.

So even as the gang was enjoying the amenities and scenery of Hollywood's favorite Hawaiian resort (which was the chief location of both "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and FOX's "North Shore," among many, many others), we still got vintage "Cougar Town" running gags, like Andy and Bobby's communication through the door, or the guy's use of the '80s shades, or Jules turning the candle holder from her room into Big Kimo, or Grayson becoming so obsessed with the morning routine song that he has to buy a ukelele to adapt it.

And yet within the comedy was one of the show's more emotionally rich, effectively sweet episodes to date. Travis' identity crisis was obviously the reason for the trip, and Laurie taking advantage of Travis' crush on her to splash some metaphorical cold water on his face was an unexpected way to resolve things there. Bobby's loneliness at taking the first big vacation of his life without a romantic partner was one of those occasionally necessary moments where Bobby's something other than a hillbilly clown, and very well played by Brian Van Holt.

To me, though, the best of those more serious stories involved Jules and Grayson. It's a tricky problem that both they and the show have to solve - particularly since Lawrence told me a while back that he doesn't see a point to introducing yet another baby that will almost never appear on camera - but I like it when the characters on this largely cartoonish show from time to time have to deal with real, complicated emotional issues. Grayson's love of kids gives Josh Hopkins' performance a really winning vulnerability (loved him popping out to complete the "Elmo's World" theme after Ellie's prompting), and he and Courteney Cox were very good in that final scene where they tried to figure out what kind of adventure to go on next.

That's two pretty terrific examples of "Cougar Town" to end the season: a standard Florida-locked show last week, and the gorgeous and funny Hawaiian getaway tonight. We're going to have to wait a little longer than normal for season 3, but these people know what they're doing with the show, and I expect the wait to be worth it.

Some other thoughts:

• I checked with "Cougar Town" co-creator Kevin Biegel - who had a cameo himself as Seinfeld Guy - about what Ted's appearance means for cross-series continuity, given the presence of Christa Miller as Ellie and occasional appearances by Ken Jenkins as Jules' dad. According to Biegel, one draft of the script had a gag where Ted sees a picture of Jules' dad and freaks out because he looks just like Kelso. (Though given that Cox herself briefly played Sacred Heart's chief of medicine, there was certainly opportunity to just deal with it when Jules and Ted met.) The idea is that Chick and Ellie look a lot like Kelso and Jordan but aren't the same person. Also, he says the existence of Coffee Bucks already put the shows in the same universe, and (here's where it gets slightly headache-inducing) that even though there have been Zach Braff references on the show, John Dorian somehow exists as well. Quoth Biegel: "They made fun of Zach Braff on 'Cougar Town,' but Braff is not JD in this universe. Braff just looks like the guy who is JD, just as Kelso looks like Chick and Seinfeld Guy looks like Brad Pitt. (Please quote me!)" So make of that what you will, continuity nerds.

• Also, on the subject of "Scrubs" continuity, how did we not see the whole Hooch/Gooch thing coming? (Hooch is, after all, crazy.) Poor, poor Ted, though I'm always grateful to hear Sam Lloyd reinterpret popular songs in his own depressing but brilliant way. (If you haven't seen it in a while, here's Ted doing the Obadiah Parker version of "Hey Ya" from the aforementioned "Scrubs" vacation episode.)

• Ted got more screen time, but the episode featured another cameo we've been waiting a while for, as Danny Pudi pops up in the background of the early Laurie/Travis scene, closing the loop that "Community" established in the episode where Abed told Jeff the story about being a "Cougar Town" extra. Interesting that the "Community" and "Cougar Town" writing staffs coordinated to a point but only to a point. Abed's a background extra, and he's both too excited to be there and thinking deep thoughts that are clearly about his alter ego as Chad, as he described in "Critical Film Studies." But in that episode, he said the scene involved Courteney Cox, and also that he messed his pants after the take, not in the middle of it.

• Is this the first episode of the series to actually feature the Tom Petty song that provided its title?

• Was surprised/pleased by the title card gag, with the map racing all the way across the continental US, through the Pacific and over to Hawaii for an aloha message.

• Though I'm with Lawrence that adding a second rarely-glimpsed baby is probably an unwise idea - it's something the show can get away with easier when it involves the main character's best friend than it could involving Jules herself - the writers do tend to make Stan's brief appearances count. Baby wrestler with six-pac abs? Awesome!

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

Nope was way off, just really hoping to see it I guess. Will take a Hooch is Crazy happily though. All we need now is the hook handed Janitor, and I'd love to see the Todd make a cameo next season as well

I really thought the Laura/Travis was very well written. It sets up the notion of a relationship but at the same time slows it down for a couple of years. Also by having Laura being a bit manipulative it displays her street smarts. Well Done.

Everyone seems to forget that Jules and Bobby were actually seen watching Scrubs in an episode last year (Episode 13, I looked it up). It wasn't a subtle background gag, it was fairly prominent, so that puts the lie to the notion that the continuity can ever be properly resolved.

But in the end, I'm happy that they forgot that and just went with it. If it means random Scrubs cameos/call-outs for the next few years, I'm all for it.

Oh, and the Abed cameo was amazing. Imagine what the people who don't watch Community must have thought!

And wouldn't it be a blast if Community actually exists in the Cougar Town universe? Like have Travis mention next season about that time he was an extra on the show? That would blow some minds.

Incidentally, that line has always bugged me. They spent a date watching the first season of Community on DVD followed by an Esteves Festivez. That's 25 episodes of Community, each with an audio commentary, plus multiple Emilio Estevez movies. That's about a 36-hour date.

"Abed's a background extra, and he's both too excited to be there and thinking deep thoughts that are clearly about his alter ego as Chad, as he described in "Critical Film Studies." But in that episode, he said the scene involved Courteney Cox, and also that he messed his pants after the take, not in the middle of it."

Ooo, I can explain this one.

Extras tend to be reused, so perhaps his story about the scene he was in with Cox did happen, but the editors found a take that he wasn't in and used that, but earlier in the day, when they shot the "Subway presents: a conversation with Travis and Laurie" scene, they didn't notice that there wasn't a take that he didn't ruin until they got to the editing room.

For Abed, the more important, story-worthy event was the scene with CC where he had the epiphany, but maybe he was ruining takes and messing his pants all day on set.

Or considering the context of Abed's story, it could be that his visit to the set was the only true part of the story and the rest of it was his attempt to tell an intense story in his vision of "My Dinner with Andre".

Yeah, there's a pretty long history of this in various combinations. To name just one, Mad About You did an episode in which we learned that Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld was actually subletting Paul Buchman's bachelor apartment, and then Seinfeld's response to that was to show George and his fiancee watching an episode of Mad About You (George very reluctantly).

I only got to see the first five minutes due to non-severe severe weather breaking in for the next hour. Thankfully I did get to see Danny Pudi's cameo which made my night but I'll have to wait to watch the rest of the episode today.

Did anyone else notice the glaring continuity error when Jules and Travis were talking on the beach? First her hair is over her the front of her shoulder, then it's hanging in the back, then over the shoulder, then in back, then a different hairstyle. It was so bad I thought it was intentional.

Saying Coolio is also a Scrubs reference in that Elliot used to say that all the time.

When Jules was chastised for saying Coolio it made me think how much Jules is character is like Elliot from Scrubs (I know that partly this has to do with Courtney Cox playing a variation of Monica from Friends but I could not help but think that because these are also the writers from Scrubs how much Jules is like Elliot). Which go me to thinking I would have liked to see Sarah Chalke in the role of Jules.

Really I would like to see Sarah Chalke starring in her own sitcom or comic movie. She needs to be on the air.

Really enjoyed the finale. I think the show could stand on its own two feet, as BL wants to find out with the timeslot change, but admittedly, am a bit worried.

I somewhat dreaded the Laurie/Travis thing when she first said she knew what she had to do, but it was sweet way to solve things. I do wonder, now that Travis is older, if the network would allow a Laurie/Travis relationship. I think it would be ... interesting. Travis is the steady guy for Laurie, while Laurie is the one that brings some spontaneity to him. It works in my head at least.

I know that Mad Love existed. I also knew it was canceled when I made my post about Sarah Chalke. I don't think she had been cast in anything for the upcoming season which is why I made the comment. I don't want television executives to forget how great she is.

I watched pretty much every episode of Mad Love because of Chalke. I found Tyler Labine and Judy Greer to be the best parts of the show. Jason Biggs was serviceable. I liked the serialized nature of the show and the actors definitely made the show better.

Sarah Chalke in Big Love I felt was playing a version of Elliot Reed closest to the version we saw her in last when the show ended. The problem with Chalke's character for me was that she was too straight and did not have as many quirks as Elliot which ended up making the character bland. Chalke is much more talented than that role. She seemed to have good chemistry with Labine it would have been interesting to see her get more of a chance to act with him.

When Ellie took Grayson's ukulele and smashed it, it reminded me of a cartoon when I was a kid called "El CaBong". The smashed ukulele had that sound but the memory is foggy on the cartoon character. I know it was a horse who was actually a sheriff and El CaBong was his alter ego. I think he had a sidekick, Deputy Dawg.